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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/23994796">you can't save everyone</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/bubonickitten/pseuds/bubonickitten'>bubonickitten</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age II</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Angst, Bipolar Anders (Dragon Age), Canon-Typical Violence, with a hopeful ending</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-05-04</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-05-04</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-02 21:14:20</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Graphic Depictions Of Violence</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>3,054</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/23994796</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/bubonickitten/pseuds/bubonickitten</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Anders is young when he learns most difficult lesson that being a healer has to offer.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>8</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>you can't save everyone</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Written with bipolar!Anders in mind.</p>
<p>(This was written like four years ago, but I just now got an AO3 account, so I'm posting some of my old stuff before I start working on something new.)</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Anders is young when he learns most difficult lesson that being a healer has to offer: you cannot save everyone. </p>
<p>He’s still early in his training, but he must be the nearest healer, because the templars waste no time pulling him away from the library and steering him through the door leading to the dungeons. The first thing he sees is the young girl sprawled out on the floor, laying in a pool of her own blood. Her breath rattles in her chest and he knows she does not have much time left, but the gauntleted hand clamping down on his shoulder turns him away from her. He is pushed instead toward a templar on the ground nearby, nursing his bloody stump of an arm and cursing under his breath, and that’s when Anders realizes that the girl is not his patient. </p>
<p>“He can wait,” Anders snaps, jerking his shoulder free from the templar’s bruising grasp. “She’s worse off than he is.”</p>
<p>“She was possessed,” the templar says flatly, and shoves him roughly toward the injured templar again. “She is beyond help.” </p>
<p>“She isn’t,” Anders protests. “She’s still alive, I can help her!”  </p>
<p>The templar gives a heavy sigh and nods to one of his fellows. Anders does not even have time to process what is happening before the templar brings the sword down on her neck. One swift swing, and her head is severed from the rest of her body. </p>
<p>“Now stop whining and do your job, apprentice.” </p>
<p>Anders refuses. </p>
<p>He pays for his defiance, but he does not regret it. He wears the bruises with a twisted sense of pride and tries to ignore the voice in his head telling him that he could have done more, that he <i>should</i> have done more. Eventually the bruises fade, but the guilt lingers, settling heavy in his chest and threatening to choke him until one day it claws its way to the surface.   </p>
<p>“She wasn’t even an apprentice yet, they only just brought her to the tower.” Anders paces angrily, one hand tangled in his hair. Wynne knows better than to invite him to sit down -– it’s not the first time she has seen him so agitated, and over the months she has learned how to accommodate his highs and his lows and everything in between. “They were taking her into quarantine, but they – they didn’t even know her name.”</p>
<p>The templars who brought Anders to the tower only a few years before did not know his name, either, and Anders has come to prefer it that way -– it’s something that belongs only to him, something they will never know or take from him. The Circle offers no privacy, no control over his own life, so he clings to even the smallest gestures of rebellion. </p>
<p>But now he has to ask the question: What if he hadn’t survived the journey to the tower, or if they had never brought him out of quarantine in the dungeons? There were bones down there, the only company he had for those first few days in the Circle. He had convinced himself they were deliberately planted there in order to intimidate newcomers; he did not want to consider the alternative at the time, but he cannot escape it now. If they wanted to, the templars could have killed him on a whim and only they would have known. </p>
<p>He could disappear from the world in an instant, and no one would even know his name. </p>
<p>In the end they were all dead and forgotten the moment they walked through those doors, weren’t they? Or even earlier, at the first hint of magic -– the moment they ceased to be daughter, son, neighbor, child and became simply <i>apostate.</i> It didn’t matter whether they died young or old, fast or slow, in agony or at peace; either way, they died silenced and unknown. Their bodies had been piling up behind the Circle’s walls for centuries, and no one would ever know what became of them because no one cared to ask. </p>
<p>“They didn’t even know her <i>name,”</i> Anders says again, his voice wavering on the last word. He stops pacing abruptly and he finally meets Wynne’s gaze.   </p>
<p>“I know it’s difficult, but we cannot save everyone,” Wynne tells him.</p>
<p>“It’s not that I <i>couldn’t,</i> it’s that they wouldn’t even let me <i>try.</i> ‘Magic is meant to serve man.’” He knows much of the Chant by heart, but none better than that verse. The Chantry sisters ensure that no mage doubts where they stand in the Maker’s eyes –- where they will <i>always</i> stand. Magic is a curse, a stain on the soul, and there is no salvation for a mage, not <i>really</i> -– but Anders has begun to doubt. “How can we serve anything if they won’t let us try? Is there <i>nothing</i> we can do to prove ourselves?”</p>
<p>“I know,” Wynne says gently, but somehow it only makes him feel worse. She has accepted this as an inevitable truth and she thinks that one day he will too, that he will grow out of his youthful rebellion, but –-</p>
<p>“It’s not right,” he says bitterly, and when he sinks into a stubborn silence, Wynne excuses him from the rest of the day’s lessons. </p>
<p>For weeks he has nightmares of a nameless, headless corpse staggering after him in the Fade. He runs, but no matter where he turns, walls materialize in front of him, one after another until he is trapped, and he awakens just as she closes in on him. </p>
<p>One night she finally catches him, but she does not harm him. Instead she leans in, as if to whisper in his ear, and although she has no mouth, he hears a voice, a verse he knows well: </p>
<p>
  <i>In your heart shall burn an unquenchable flame, all-consuming and never satisfied.</i>
</p>
<p>Days later he runs, and this time there are no walls to stop him. The templars catch up with him eventually –- they always do –- but his fire burns brighter than their wrath, and when they call him apostate, he feels no shame. </p>
<p>________________________________________</p>
<p>Anders is good at escaping, but laying low has always been more difficult. All his talk of caring only for his own freedom crumbles as soon as his talents as a healer are needed. It could bring the templars down on him -– and over the years it has, resulting in his capture on more than one occasion -– but some risks are worth taking. </p>
<p>And so his reputation spreads: <i>Refugees in Darktown know -– to find the healer, look for the lit lantern. If you have need enough, Anders will be within.</i></p>
<p>When Anders is in Darktown, the lantern is always lit. It never stays in one place for long –- he moves the clinic frequently in hopes of avoiding detection -– but there is always need, more than he can remedy on his own. He’s an apostate, and yet the refugees and the poor residents of the undercity defend him as one of their own, warn him of impending raids, trust him with their children’s lives, and protect his secret as best they can. It is loyalty he has not encountered since Vigil’s Keep, unexpected but just as welcome now as it was then, even if it is motivated more by their need for his services than care for his well-being. </p>
<p>He’s only weeks in Kirkwall when he delivers an apostate’s child for the first time, and when he places the swaddled infant into her mother’s embrace rather than into a templar’s waiting arms, he knows that it’s worth it. </p>
<p><i>Magic is meant to serve man,</i> he tells himself. What good is the gift of magic if he does not use it? </p>
<p>________________________________________</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“You’ll understand, Anders, as soon as the templars teach you to control yourself,” Karl says, and there is none of the familiar warmth in his tone. “This is the apostate.” </p>
<p><i>Apostate.</i> It was the accusation leveled against him all those years ago by the templars who tore him away from the only home he had ever known. He had only been a child, terrified of the whispers in the back of his mind, of a power he could not and did not even want to understand, but it did not matter. They did not ask his name. They cared only that he was an apostate -– one who has turned their back on their faith -– and all he had to do to earn the title was to <i>exist</i>.   </p>
<p>And now <i>apostate</i> is all he will ever be to Karl. </p>
<p><i>We cannot save everyone,</i> Wynne’s voice echoes in his memory, but it’s no more comforting now than it was then. All he can think of is the blood on his hands, Justice’s roar in the back of his mind, and the cold indifference in Karl’s voice when he said the word: <i>Apostate.</i></p>
<p>________________________________________</p>
<p> </p>
<p>It’s the same story, over and over and over again.</p>
<p>He cannot save Pol, no matter how much Merrill may plead. They cannot linger for her to grieve, and Anders thinks of that night in the Chantry. He could not linger then, either. Even years later, the loss still feels raw, and he can’t help but feel a shameful twinge of bitterness that Merrill’s people will at least be able to collect the body.</p>
<p>He cannot save Bartrand, and Varric wishes he did not even try. Anders knew it wouldn’t last –- it was a spell he has used on himself many times over the years, whenever things got too loud and too bright and too <i>much</i> -– and he cannot help but wonder if Varric would say the same about him if he ever saw him at his worst. </p>
<p>He cannot save Leandra, and Hawke does not ask. Anders’ magic keeps people alive, but not like this. Never like this. The best he can do is be there in the aftermath, and so he is, but some wounds are not so easily healed.  </p>
<p>Then, in a single night, a templar raid decimates the Mage Underground. They are caught unprepared, more than half of their small number is lost, and most of the survivors go into hiding to nurse their wounds. Some leave the city, convinced that the cause in Kirkwall is lost and the rebellion’s efforts are best focused elsewhere. Anders sinks into despair again, and he wonders how many more mages whose slaughter he will be forced to witness before things change. </p>
<p>“We can’t save everyone, Justice,” he says later, for his own benefit as much as the spirit’s, but it’s no consolation. </p>
<p>Some days, it feels like they can’t save anyone. </p>
<p>________________________________________</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“The Knight-Commander has sent away to Val Royeaux for the Right of Annulment,” Karras gloats, just loud enough for Hawke and their companions to hear. He has not forgotten Hawke’s role in freeing the Starkhaven mages, and now he believes that he has won. <i>The Maker guides my hand,</i> as the templars say. Every drop of blood they spill will be taken as proof of the Maker’s might and mercy, and Karras knows it. “Those robes are going to get their lesson -– soon.”</p>
<p>It’s only days later when the Divine sends an agent to determine whether an Exalted March on Kirkwall should be declared. Anders’ heart sinks. He knows that if the Divine determines that the Right of Annulment could stifle the rebellion and prevent an Exalted March, she will approve it. Why wouldn’t she? Mages are expendable, tools of the Chantry and nothing more. They always have been. They do not care that they are someone’s son, daughter, lover. They do not care to hear their voices or know their names. </p>
<p>It’s the last straw. There’s nothing left to salvage, no compromise to be had, and no peace to be preserved. They’re already dying in droves, and the Chantry would see them all killed, no survivors left to tell the story –- but that doesn’t mean that they have to go down without a fight.  </p>
<p>________________________________________</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Anders knows what he has to do. He doesn’t know if it’s his idea or Justice’s, but they are in agreement, even if both of them wish there was another way. They do not tell Hawke the details of their plan, but there’s no fooling Hawke –- they know that war is coming. </p>
<p>“You know, Anders… a wise dragon once told me that without an end, there can be no peace,” Hawke tells him one night, their tone as light and playful as always. “Well, granted, she hands out cryptic, unsettling prophecies like free drinks, and I’m still a bit cross that she never did teach me how to be a dragon -– but that doesn’t mean she was wrong.” </p>
<p>“Hawke,” Anders says seriously, “I don’t expect you to forgive me for what I have to do.” </p>
<p>“Revolutions are never peaceful, Anders,” Hawke replies, smile faltering, tone solemn -– a rare sight. “We both know that. You said once that you want to see a world worth saving. That means change, and change means endings, and endings mean loss. But it makes way for something new.” </p>
<p>Hawke is quiet for a moment, and then their smile returns. “I trust you.” </p>
<p>Anders is torn between relief and guilt, and he feels the hot prickle of tears in his eyes. He doesn’t know what he did to earn such loyalty, but he does not feel that he deserves it, and if Hawke knew the truth, perhaps they would agree. </p>
<p>________________________________________</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Anders feels Hawke’s eyes on his back as he awaits their judgment. He is not at peace -– he has long since given up on peace –- but he has accepted what must come next. He has chosen change over peace, justice over mercy, and there’s no turning back.</p>
<p>But the blade doesn’t come. </p>
<p>“You can’t save everyone, Hawke,” Anders says. He can’t look Hawke in the eye, but he knows what he would see there: Hurt. Betrayal. A question: <i>How could you put me in this position?</i> He knows it’s unfair, he knows he has no right to ask this of them, and he knows that nothing he can say will make it right. All he can do is wait. “Do what you have to do.” </p>
<p>“Maker’s breath, Anders,” Hawke says with an exasperated sigh. “You’ve saved a lot of people over the years. Don’t you think it’s your turn?” </p>
<p>“No,” Anders replies shortly. “I don’t deserve--”</p>
<p>“Anders, no offense, but you’ve never been a good judge of what you deserve,” they say, more gently than Anders expected and with far more kindness than he believes he’s worth. “I still trust you. Can you trust me?” </p>
<p>“I’ve always trusted you,” Anders says hurriedly, willing Hawke to believe him, because it’s the truth. “I just didn’t want you involved, I wanted to protect--” </p>
<p>“We’ll talk about that later,” Hawke says. “For now, just believe me when I say that you deserve to live in a world worth saving. Now come on, we’ve stood around long enough.”  </p>
<p>“You mean… come with you?” he asks, disbelieving, finally standing to meet Hawke’s eyes. There’s hurt there, yes -– that was to be expected -– but there’s no resentment, no rejection. </p>
<p>There’s faith, and fire, and Anders suddenly feels more hopeful than he has in months. </p>
<p>“What, was there another option?” Hawke raises an eyebrow, and then shakes their head. “What’s done is done. You can’t save everyone, Anders, but that doesn’t mean it’s not worth trying.” </p>
<p>They pause for a moment, and Anders sees the mischief in their eyes before that all-too-familiar wicked grin forms on their lips. “And hey, with any luck, maybe we can finally get the Knight-Commander’s head on a pike.”</p>
<p>“<i>Maker,</i> Hawke--”</p>
<p>“Joking, joking!” </p>
<p>________________________________________</p>
<p> </p>
<p>As they leave Kirkwall behind them, Anders’ mind wanders. It was a lifetime ago, but he still remembers those moments clearly, often more vividly than he would like.  </p>
<p>He was eight years old when he heard the first whispers from beyond the Veil -– a faint murmuring in the back of his mind, a hissing in his veins, soft melody he could not hear but could <i>feel.</i> Some of them he knew instinctively were sinister, the ones that stopped his heart and made his blood run cold, but there were others that resonated warmth, welcoming, and a sense of simple curiosity that he met in equal measure. He kept it a secret, though –- even then, he knew what people would think. </p>
<p>He was nine the first time his breath frosted a mirror on a summer day, ten when raindrops froze in his hands, but it wasn’t until he was eleven that he knew for certain. </p>
<p>The cat in the barn had given birth to three healthy kittens, but the fourth was a runt, still and quiet in his hands. <i>Breathe,</i> he thought, as if his will alone was enough to bring life to its still body -– and it was. He tried to convince himself that he only imagined the glow at his fingertips and the hum in his ears, but he knew what it was. What <i>he</i> was. </p>
<p>He was raised by the Chant. All he knew of magic was that it was a curse, a stain on a family’s name, a marker of sin and condemnation, and as he found himself questioning for the first time how something that could bring life could be such a curse, his heart sank. Was he already falling prey to doubt and temptation? </p>
<p>He kept the secret for a few more months, but then the fire happened. It had been an accident, and in his panic the flames sparked in his hands and out of his control. He spent the next few nights locked in the cellar, listening to his parents’ raised voices in the house above him. His mother wanted to protect him, but he knew it was useless; his father always had the last word. </p>
<p>When the templars arrived, they called him <i>apostate</i> and they wasted no time putting him in chains. They did not know his name; they did not ask. But as they led him away, he saw the runt tabby perched on the fencepost, healthy and strong and so, so <i>alive,</i> and he could not bring himself to regret giving it life.</p>
<p>Anders knows that a healer can’t save everyone, but he also knows that he would not trade it for anything.</p>
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